August, 2008

Blog » Archives for August 2008

Archive for August, 2008

Harvest Low-hanging Profit and Triple Your Small Business Income

By Charlie Cook | August 27, 2008

Many small business owners, entrepreneurs and marketers struggle to be more profitable and overlook simple, effective strategies that could increase their sales by as much as 200%.

Are you one of them? Have you overlooked these marketing opportunities, too?

• Do you have a list of satisfied clients but you’re having trouble increasing your sales?
• Do you send out mailings and get a miniscule rate of return?
• Do you run ads and expect a landslide of new business?
• Do you have a web site that barely pays for itself?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you’re burning up time and money stretching and straining to increase sales and missing the low-hanging profits you could be taking in.

Have you been to one of those Pick-Your-Own orchards? It’s an annual fall excursion in my family. Each year we drive to our favorite orchard in Monkton, Vermont and pick a few pecks of apples for eating and baking.

If you’ve picked your own apples, you know that it’s a lot easier to grab the ones hanging on the lower branches. The wooden ladders that reach to the top of the trees are heavy, awkward, and never nearby when you need them. Once you’ve located a ladder and wrestled it into position, you’ve got to scramble up without damaging yourself or the brittle branches of the tree.

You can pick five times as many apples in the same amount of time by moving from tree to tree and grabbing the ones within reach. Likewise, there is profit potential within reach if you know how to take advantage of it.

Discover the easiest way to pick up more profits with your business. >>

Small Changes Add Up to Big Profits
Recently my VW dealer sent me an email detailing 4 ways to improve my mileage by 20%; replace filters, change the oil, tune the engine and keep the tires properly inflated. Each is a small, low cost change but making them could add up to significant savings. You can improve sales with similar low cost changes in your marketing and have a big impact on profits.

Here are seven small changes that can yield big results:

1. Replace your marketing message; Increase sales by 20% to 3,000%.
2. Use an automated lead generation system to target your best prospects; Increase sales by 100% to 1,000%.
3. Change your pricing strategy; Increase profits by 20% to 65%.
4. Replace your sales script; Increase closing rates and sales by 50% to 80%
5. Change your sales page headline; Increase your income by 50% to 150%.
6. Include related up-sell offers; Increase profits by 12% to 25%.
7. Use every page on your website to generate leads, instead of just one or two pages; Increase your sales by 15% to 40%.

Ready to discover how and where to increase your profits? Find the easy answers >>

The solution to making more with your business isn’t to look for a magic marketing pill that will solve all your problems instantly. It doesn’t exist. The solution is to pick the low hanging fruit to get 10% and 20% and bigger improvements.

How to Increase Sales by 300%
If you could find a way to increase your profits by 10% every month, you would have more than tripled your income by the end of the year. Harvesting low-hanging profits can do that for your business. Like plucking the apples at arm’s length in an orchard, it’s less work and a whole lot more fruitful.

Interested in harvesting low-hanging profits to grow your sales and your business? Discover how >>

– Charlie

Marketing Ideas that Make YOU Money

P.S. Add a few thousand dollars here and a few there each month and within a few months you’ll be on your way to making an additional $100,000 to $300,000 or more this year.

Is My Marketing Too Subtle?

By Charlie Cook | August 26, 2008

Recently I mailed my subscribers an offer of a free report in exchange for answering one question. The response was terrific. I got thousands of people to download the report and got tons of data about what people are looking for. But then I got one person who wrote in and asked,

“How do you use your marketing to get people to contact you?”

Didn’t he see how I got him to contact me? Was I being too subtle?

If you haven’t done so already, sign up to get the 7 steps to build your business and increase your profits. It’s written for small business owners and marketers and it’s free, at least for now. Use this link to claim your copy >>

Am I being too subtle? Sign up before I start charging for this exclusive report.

– Charlie
Small Business Marketing Based On Results Not Opinion

What I Like About This Commercial…

By Charlie Cook | August 25, 2008

Allstate has a commercial currently running that poses the “What If…” question. I can’t remember each one, but they included:
– What if someone rear ended your car crashing your car into another car?
– What if you had an accident with a car that was worth over $60,000?
– What if a friend borrows your car and trashes it… are you covered?
– What if a branch falls on your car… are you covered?
etc.

You get the idea. At the end it makes you wonder – heh am I covered?
If you have the youtube link to this video, please let me know.
(Want to view other great video ads? Here’s the best video commercials I’ve found >>)

Now ask yourself:
– What if when you sent out a mailing, instead of getting dozens of responses you got hundreds, or when you reviewed your web sales instead of just a couple of sales you saw thousands.
– What if your marketing actually worked?
– How much more money could you be making?
————
– Charlie
MarketingForSuccess.com

5 Steps to More Web Sales – Advanced Web Marketing

By Charlie Cook | August 19, 2008

You’ve been working hard to get people to your site so you can generate sales. Are you frustrated yet?

Most website owners have spent more time and money on their sites than they want to admit — and they hardly generate any sales. Despite hours spent writing copy, getting the site built and struggling with SEO (search engine optimization), you’re still waiting for your site to kick online sales into gear.

Want to know the secret to making your website sell like crazy?

Traffic alone isn’t the answer.

I hear regularly from small business owners who’ve spent a fortune on SEO or pay-per-click ads and still aren’t making money from their sites. If you’re one of these, you know how annoying it can be. You want to be making money online, not losing it, and you want a good return on the time and money you’ve poured into your website.

What’s the secret to online success?
Get the answer >>

Your website needs to do four things to make money for you and your company. It needs to convert visitors to prospects; convert prospects into buyers; and to deliver the product or service and follow-up to get the next sale.

The first four steps to making your web site a money-making engine are to set up your:

1. Lead generation system
2. Conversion system
3. Fulfillment system
4. Follow-up marketing system

Is that all you need to do?

You’re almost there but you not only need an online engine; you need one that generates more money than it uses.

Which of the following scenarios describes your site?

A. Your site gets a hundred or more visitors a week but hardly generates any leads or sales.

B. Your site gets a modest amount of traffic, say, a hundred visitors a week, but at least 10% of site visitors sign up for your free offer (you do have one, don’t you?) and they give you their contact information so you can go to work helping them become buyers.

In example A. you’re probably spending more than you’re making. In B. you should be happily making money.

Ready to discover the secrets to turning your website into a money-making machine? Get started >>

What’s The Difference Between Sites That Make Money and Those That Don’t?

Every website that wants to make money has all 4 of the above elements but why then is it that some do a better job of making money than others?

In our family we own both a 1998 Subaru Outback and a 2005 Audi Allroad. Both have seats, engine and wheels. Both burn the same amount of gas. What’s the difference?

The Audi has an engine and turbo charger that converts gas into at least twice as much power. It accelerates beautifully, while the Subaru, chugs slowly up to speed. Now don’t get me wrong the Subaru is a great car but it’s slow.

Which would you want? The slow website that chugs along or the one that converts leads to sales at blinding speed?

Interested in turbocharging your website’s performance to increase sales? Find out how >>

The fifth step to making money online is maximizing your conversion rate. Many small business websites convert only a couple of visitors a week into prospects and sales. You want to convert at least several each day, if not each hour.

How much money in sales is your site bringing in each week? How much would your site bring in if you increased your conversion rate by a factor of ten? Or twenty? That’s how much money you could and should be making.

You can improve your conversion rates and convert more visitors to prospects and prospects to clients. Here’s how to do it:

1. Measure Your Conversion
Google provides a free, easy-to-use tool called the Website Optimizer. you’ll find in your Adwords account. With this you can set up simple trials to measure the conversion rates of key pages and compare them to variations on that page.

2. Change Your Web Page Copy and Layout
Once you’ve analyzed your existing pages, you can go to work on making changes to get a better response and generate more sales.

Small changes in copy, type size, and the location of these on a site page can make a big difference in the number of people who respond to your offers and to your conversion rates. I’m still amazed at how significant apparently minor changes can be.

After ten years of online success, I’ve found many ways to boost my conversion rates at every point in the sales process.

Want to discover how much more you could be making with your website? >>

To your success,

Charlie
MarketingForSuccess

P.S. Use these web marketing strategies to dramatically increase your conversions and your web site revenue. I did. Take action today and start closing all those online sales you’ve been missing.

Interested in doubling or tripling your web sales? Take action today >>

Best Video Commercials – So Far

By Charlie Cook | August 5, 2008

What’s one of the most effective ways of getting people to your web site and your business? With a great viral video ad, one that your target market will share and help people learn about your products and services.

I just added 5 more videos to the list of the best video commercials. Take a look and let me know if you have a favorite you’d like to see included.

1. Is this ad the answer to the Apple airbook. See this video ad for yourself >>

2. Sometimes exaggeration works to demonstrate your product. Take a look at this video commercial >>

3. What’s the best way to demonstrate your product’s capabilities? Here’s how a good example of how to use fantasy in your viral videos >>

4. It’s all about demonstrating the problem. That’s what this video ad does with humor >>

5. And finally how to use a celebrity in your ads and make it funny too. See this video commercial with an unexpected ending >>

Have more videos you’d like included. Let me know and we’ll review them.

– Charlie
Small Business Marketing That Gets Attention and More Business

The #1 Secret To Becoming a Millionaire

By Charlie Cook | August 5, 2008

Have you ever sat down with a friend or colleague and wondered why he is a millionaire and you’re not? Have you asked yourself what makes him different? You’re both successful, both enjoy life, both call your own shots… but he’s a millionaire.

What makes him different? What makes him a millionaire? You have similar skill sets, you have similar life experiences, and yet you have very different incomes. What sets millionaires apart?

Most people believe that the surefire path to becoming a millionaire is to make more money. Sure, more money helps, but it’s no guarantee that you’ll become a millionaire. In fact, many of your millionaire colleagues may actually make less money than you do.

So how do you become a millionaire? Here’s the answer: develop the habits of millionaires. It’s that simple.

Can Habits Really Make You A Millionaire?
Can you really become a millionaire just by changing your habits? Yes!

Millionaires aren’t any smarter than you. They aren’t born with mystical powers for making money. But they have discovered how to make money — and lots of it. They have habits–habits that you don’t have–that make them millionaires.

Almost every self-made millionaire has strong financial habits. Habits that help them earn money, habits that help them save money, and habits that help them to achieve their financial goals. Habits that you can develop.

These habits will give you the financial power to buy your dream house, take weeks of vacation every year, buy the car you’ve been dreaming of since you were 16 years old, and take care of your family and friends.

It sounds crazy – but it’s true.

Do you want to become a millionaire?
As I mentioned, you can learn the habits that will make you a millionaire. You can study the habits of millionaires around the world. You can interview thousands of millionaires to find out how they made their millions. You can compile all the information you gather and develop a way to become a millionaire yourself.

Or you can take the shortcut to developing the habits of a millionaire.

If you’re familiar with Brian Tracy, you already know that he’s one of America’s leading authorities on business, financial and personal success. Over the past 30 years he has interviewed and studied thousands of millionaires from around the world to discover what makes them millionaires.

In his 6-CD program Million Dollar Habits, he teaches you the financial habits that will turn you into a millionaire.

Change your habits today
Million Dollar Habits replaces your money draining behaviors with money producing behaviors. The habits that you will learn are the exact same habits that thousands of millionaires have used to get to where they are today.

In Million Dollar Habits you’ll be given clear and practical advice on how to get ahead financially. You will learn a series of step-by-step strategies, methods and techniques that you can use immediately!

Get Million Dollar Habits today.

Will You Become A Millionaire?
You have the opportunity to become a millionaire. A few simple changes in your habits–habits that are preventing you from becoming a millionaire right now–are all you need.

How can you develop the habits you need to become a millionaire? Use this proven strategy >>

To your success,

Charlie

PS: Becoming a millionaire isn’t rocket science… it’s habitual. Million Dollar Habits will teach you the behaviors you need to develop your true millionaire potential. Get your copy today >>

“Before I listened to this program I was really unhappy with my financial situation. I was working really hard, but never had anything to show for it. I never had enough money in the bank. After listing to this program I realized everything I was doing wrong. I changed my habits immediately and today my situation is 100 times better. Literally.”
–James Samuels, Sydney Australia

Get started >>

3 Keys to Small Business Marketing Success

By Charlie Cook | August 4, 2008

You want to attract more clients, increase your sales and maximize your profits. And you want to do it in less time.

What’s getting in your way?

Working harder isn’t the answer! After decades of helping struggling small business owners be more successful, I’ve seen the same three issues emerge in every case. I see them with business people looking to make their first $100,000 as well as to those trying to make their next five million.

What are they? What are the three things that you need to do to be more successful?

To be truly successful in any business you need to have a vision that’s big enough, have the knowledge of what to do, and most importantly, you need to delegate responsibility.

1. Envision Success Not Just A Stepping Stone
When someone calls me to talk about my one-on-one coaching services, one of the first questions I ask them is what their goals are. Typically, they want to increase their income or sales by 10 or 15%.

99% of the time these business owners are running businesses that have much more profit potential than that. Too many of them think in terms that limit how well they’ll do; their vision is too small.

Plan to grow by 10% and that’s all you’ll do. Plan to grow by 200% and you can achieve that!

You can go to the grocery store hoping to find a few ingredients to make a sandwich, or you can go determined to find everything you need to cook a delicious 3-course feast. Create a vision and goals that will help you get there instead of ones that are getting in your way.

If you’re going to go to all the effort to grow your business, why not make at least 250,000 or if you’re already making five million why not aim for seven million?

Do this right now, before you read any further. Write a paragraph describing your success and make a list of your goals for the rest of this year.

2. Get And Apply The Knowledge You Need
I’m continually amazed at the number of otherwise savvy business owners who want to become masters of marketing and keep trying to do so by copying other’s failed marketing techniques. You need to know what to do and how to do it in order to grow your business.

Start by answering the following questions.

What knowledge and skills are required?
Do you need to discover how to attract more clients, close more sales or finally turn your website into a profit center?

What do you need to do to reach each of your goals?
A faster way of generating leads?

A system for growing your business?

To close more sales?

A web site that converts visitors to buyers?

What kind of advice do you need?
Do you need someone to help you organize your marketing and show you how to focus your efforts? Use this link >>

3. Delegate Your Way to the Top
There are only so many hours in a day; no matter how many of them you spend at work, you’ll never be able to do everything on your own. The third key to success is delegating administrative and operational tasks.

If you’re spending your day processing orders or setting up jobs for customers, you’ll never have time to focus on your primary job, growing your business. The sooner you stop trying to do everything yourself and start managing others, the sooner you’ll see your business grow in leaps and bounds.

Think big. Envision your success, get the knowledge you need to succeed and then delegate everything with the exception of your growth strategy. You’ll be amazed at how much more successful you’ll be!

– Charlie
Small Business Marketing Success

P.S. No matter what you market and sell, you can eliminate the barriers to growing your business more easily than you think. Create your vision of your successful business and then develop a plan for realizing it. To reach your goals, you’ll need to know how to attract clients, and you’ll need a system to generate a steady stream of leads, close more sales and use the internet to maximize your profits.

Get started >>

To listen to a podcast of this article use this link >>